Pocket Shorts, the UK's only independent mobile phone film production fund, will be celebrating its first birthday this November by commissioning up to ten short films. This is a Blink initiative aimed at filmmakers who have graduated in the last five years and live in Yorkshire, the North West and the North East of England.

Blink is calling for Pocket Shorts applications from all forms of moving image makers working in animation, games design, advertising, 3D design, music video, motion graphics, graphic design as well as traditional artists and filmmakers.

Succesful applicants will be awarded up to £2,000 production funding to create short films of four x fifteen seconds or sixty seconds in length. Awardees will also be matched with a compatible industry partner to provide mentoring and guidance through the production process. DEADLINE 30 NOVEMBER.

Prior to the application deadline, free mobile phone filmmaking workshops are being held in each of the three regions. The workshops are a great opportunity for filmmakers to view examples of short moving image work, find out about the distribution channels for the finished films and discuss their ideas with Lisa Roberts and Andrew Wilson from Blink.

This is an invitation by the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge to groups and individuals to submit proposals for exhibition of interactive art work and projects reflecting on the thematic of the Pacific Rim. This is the second and final call for artworks in this category.
Proposals Due: December 15th, 2005
Final Decisions: Feb 10, 2006

ABOUT THE PACIFIC RIM CALL

The political and economic space of the Pacific Rim represents a dynamic context for innovation and creativity. Convergent and divergent practices involving art, science, architecture and urban planning, engineering, industrial and interior design, communications, literature and performance are being manifested in new forms of cultural production and social experiences.

The complex relations and diversity of Pacific Rim nations is exemplified throughout the hybridized communities that comprise Silicon Valley including local indigenous peoples. As the 10th largest city in the United States, San Jose is an important portal on the eastern edge of the Pacific region, which shares deep historical and cultural connections that range from Latin America and the South Pacific to Southeast Asia and Asia. ISEA2006 and ZeroOne San Jose Festival are highlighting the Pacific Rim defined in the broadest possible sense to include not only those states and nations that border the Pacific Ocean but also the geo-political, economic, social and historical frameworks of which they are part.

We are seeking proposals that address, but are not limited to, art work that emphasize radical and alternative responses to contemporary cultural conditions throughout the Pacific Rim. We want to encourage proposals specifically from emerging artists. Of particular interest are projects that focus on engagements and interaction strategies with Diaspora communities and local context as well as work that enable new discourses, platforms and explorations ...

Conceptual Artist Offers Consumers Personalized
Kilogram, Watt, Calorie... First Revolutionary Change
to Weights and Measures Since 1793... Major Victory
for Democracy in the 21st Century...

SAN FRANCISCO - Following several years of
highly-secretive privately-funded research, conceptual
artist Jonathon Keats announces comprehensive
improvements to the metric system, anticipated finally
to make the meter a viable unit of measure in the
United States. The system will be introduced to the
public at Modernism Gallery, in San Francisco, on
October 27, 2005. Mr. Keats will be available to
provide expert calibration. ...

Morgan Schwartz creates video installations, single-channel videos,
urban actions and interactive media projects. He works collaboratively
on projects in response to specific sites or cultural systems. In
collaboration with Glowlab, he developed "One Block Radius", an online
interactive archive commissioned for New York's New Museum of
Contemporary Art (oneblockradius.org). Morgan organized The Hope.
Project, an urban performance and skywriting public art project made in
response to September 11th. His work has been presented at the DUMBO
Short Film/Video Festival, NY 2004, Participant Gallery, NY 2004; The
Kitchen, NY 2003; Boston Cyber Arts Festival 2003, 2001; ArtRages:
Mobius, Boston 2003; Berwick Research Institute, Boston 2002; Aquinas
College, Grand Rapids 2002; Aidekman Arts Center, Boston 2002; Tisch
School of Visual Art, NY 2001; Gallery@ Green Street, Boston 2001.
Morgan earned a BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University in
1996 and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in
2002. He is an Assistant Professor of Digital Multimedia at Marymount
Manhattan College.

microRevolt projects investigate the dawn of sweatshops in early
industrial capitalism to inform the current crisis of global expansion
and the feminization of labor. microRevolt developed web application
knitPro, a protest tool that generates knit patterns of sweatshop
offenders. It was founded in 2003 by knit hobbyist Cat Mazza.